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📰 Pakistan stays on ‘Grey list’ subject to on-site check. • Pakistan on Friday got a reprieve from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) as the international watchdog announced that the country could be removed from the “grey list” after a visit by a fact-finding team to verify the measures it has taken to deal with terror financing. • Also on Friday, FATF removed Malta from its "grey list" but added Gibraltar. • The Paris-based group added Pakistan to the list in 2018. • The "Grey list" is composed of countries with a high risk of money laundering and terrorism financing but which have formally committed to working with the task force to make changes. • The designation severely restricts a country's international borrowing capabilities. • Still, being on the Paris based international watch dog's "grey list" can scare away investors and creditors, hurting exports, output and consumption. It also can make global banks wary of doing business with a country. • A Pakistani-based independent think tank, Tabadlab, has estimated that it has cost the country's econo my $38 billion since it was put on the grey list in 2018. • The FATF is made up of 37 member countries, including the United States, and two regional groups, the Gulf Cooperation Council and the European Commission. • Currently, only Iran and North Korea are blacklisted. 📰 India backs China’s plan for joint border activity. • India has supported an initiative by China to conduct a “joint border operation” in 2023 of all member countries of SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation). • The border operation called “Solidarity-2023” will be organised by China. 📰 ADP to be extended to block, city level: PM. • Aspirational districts should be ‘inspirational districts’ of India, and the Aspirational District Programme (ADP) should be extended to block and city levels, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said. • The ADP, launched in 2018, aims to transform 112 districts that have shown relatively lesser progress in key social areas. 📰 China gets its third Aircraft carrier. • China launched its biggest and most modern aircraft carrier. • The new carrier, named Fujian, is the "first catapult aircraft carrier wholly designed and built by China". 📰 5 mn Indians affected by disasters: UN. • The annual Global Trends Report by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) highlighted that globally 100 million people were forced to flee their homes last year due to violence, human rights abuses, food insecurity, the climate crisis, war in Ukraine and other emergencies from Africa to Afghanistan. • "The largest displacements in the context of disasters in 2021 occurred in China (6.0 million), the Philippines (5.7 million) and India (4.9 million)," it said. 📰 PM to launch schemes for maternal nutrition in Gujarat. • Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday will launch a scheme on maternal nutrition in Gujarat at an outlay of ₹800 crore. • Under the “Mukhyamantri Matrushakti Yojana”, pregnant and lactating mothers will be given 2 kg of chickpeas, 1 kg of tur dal and 1 kg of edible oil free of cost every month from anganwadi centres in Gujarat. An estimated 1.36 lakh women will benefit from the scheme. • The Prime Minister will also disburse around ₹120 crores towards ‘Poshan Sudha Yojana’, which is now being extended to all tribal beneficiaries in the State. • The scheme was being implemented as a pilot project in 10 talukas of five tribal-dominated districts and is now being expanded to 14 tribal-dominated districts. It offers one nutritious meal a day to pregnant and lactating women. • The schemes aim to intervene during the first 1,000 days of a child’s life, which is the period from conception till the time the child turns two. • Their objective is to reduce the number of newborns who are underweight at birth as well as to improve infant mortality and maternal mortality rates.

■ Election Commission: • Election Commission is a permanent and an independent body established by the Constitution of India directly to ensure free and fair elections in the country. • Article 324 of the Constitution provides that the power of superintendence, direction and control of elections to parliament, state legislatures, the office of president of India and the office of Vice-president of India shall be vested in the election commission. • Currently, Election Commission is a multi-member body consisting a Chief Election Commissioner and two other Election Commissioners. • The appointment of the chief election commissioner and other election commissioners shall be made by the President. • The Election Commission shall consist of the Chief Election Commissioner and such number of other election Commissioners, if any, as the president may from time to time fix. • The chief election commissioner and the two other election commissioners have equal powers and receive equal salary, allowances and other perquisites, which are similar to those of a judge of the Supreme Court. • They hold office for a term of six years or until they attain the age of 65 years, whichever is earlier. They can resign at any time or can also be removed before the expiry of their term. • Since its inception in 1950 and till 15 October 1989, the Election commission functioned as a single member body consisting of the Chief Election Commissioner. • On 16 October 1989, the President appointed two more election commissioners to cope with the increased work of the election commission on account of lowering of the voting age from 21 to 18 years. • Voting age was reduced from 21 to 18 years by 61st Constitutional Amendment Act, 1988. • However, the two posts of election commissioners were abolished in January 1990 and the Election Commission was reverted to the earlier position. • Again in October 1993, the president appointed two more election commissioners. Since then and till today, the Election Commission has been functioning as a multi-member body consisting of three election commissioners. • The Election commission is not concerned with the elections to panchayats and municipalities in the states. For this, the Constitution of India provides for a separate State Election Commission. • At the state level, the Election Commission is assisted by the chief electoral officer who is appointed by the chief election commissioner in consultation with the state government. • Below this, at the district level, the collector acts as the district returning officer. He appoints a returning officer for every constituency in the district and presiding officer for every polling booth in the constituency. □ Removal: • The Chief election commissioner is removed from his office in same manner and on the same grounds as a judge of the Supreme Court. • In other words, he can be removed by the president on the basis of a resolution passed to that effect by both the Houses of Parliament with special majority, either on the ground of proved misbehaviour or incapacity. • Any other election commissioner or a regional commissioner cannot be removed from office except on the recommendation of the chief election commissioner. □ Articles regarding Election: • Article 324 - Superintendence, direction and control of elections to be vested in an Election Commission. • Article 325 - No person to be ineligible for inclusion in, or to claim to be included in a special, electoral roll on grounds of religion, race, caste or sex. • Article 326 - Elections to the House of the people and to the legislative assemblies of states to be on the basis of adult suffrage. • Article 327 - Power of Parliament to make provision with respect to elections to legislatures. • Article 328 - Power of legislature of a state to make provision with respect to elections to such legislature. • Article 329 - Bar to interference by courts in electoral matters.

■ Wholesale Price Index (WPI) Vs Consumer Price Index (CPI): • WPI measures the average change in prices of goods at the wholesale level while CPI calculates the average change in prices of goods and services at the retail level. • WPI data is published by the Office of Economic Adviser, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, while CPI data is published by the National Statistical Office (NSO), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI). • The base year for WPI is 2011-12 while the base year for CPI is 2012. • WPI takes into account the change in price of goods only, while CPI takes into account the change in process of both goods and services. • In WPI, more weightage is given to manufactured goods, while in CPI, more weightage is given to food items. • WPI is the most widely used inflation indicator in India. • The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) uses CPI data to control inflation. In April 2014, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had adopted the CPI as its key measure of inflation.

📰 Project to track small fishing vessels pending since 26/11: • As the Quad grouping looks to track and address Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing in the Indo-Pacific, an ambitious effort to install satellite-based Vehicle Monitoring Systems (VMS) for small fishing vessels (less than 20m) across the country’s coastline in the aftermath of 26/11 Mumbai attacks is still to be rolled out. Despite pilot studies being conducted, the project remains stuck, according to Government officials. • “Tracking of our small fishing vessels is something pending since 26/11, but it has been stuck primarily due to two reasons,” a Government official said on condition of anonymity. • “Fishermen don’t want to get tagged as they do not want any of their illegal activities recorded and they are sceptical that others will get to know of where there is good catch. Second is that fishing is a State subject and there are local politics involved,” the official explained. • The official further stated that there is no legislation to force fishermen to install the transponders and efforts by the Ministry of Fisheries to table the Indian Marine Fisheries Bill 2021 which covers this has been repeatedly delayed due to opposition from States and fishermen. • The Quad grouping, comprising of India, Australia, Japan and U.S., announced at the Tokyo summit last month an ambitious Indo-Pacific Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA) initiative to track “dark shipping” and build a “faster, wider, and more accurate maritime picture of near-real-time activities in partners’ waters” integrating three critical regions in the Indo-Pacific - the Pacific Islands, Southeast Asia, and Indian Ocean Region (IOR).  • There are two main regulations globally on IUU fishing - Cape Town Agreement (CTA) and the Agreement on Ports State Measures (PSMA) and India is, so far, not a signatory of both the agreements. • Automatic Identification System (AIS) is for bigger ships which was made compulsory for all vessels above 20 metres after 26/11 by the National Committee on Strengthening Maritime and Coastal Security (NCSMCS) headed by the Cabinet Secretary set up to look into issues related to coastal security. • For smaller fishing vessels, VMS, which is slightly different from AIS, is used, another official said, explaining that AIS is a broadcast mode which anyone can receive while VMS is a proprietary system and one can’t receive unless the data is given. It terms of functioning VMS has a transponder which relays data via a satellite. • Trials were conducted on tracking of vessels under 20m first fitted on small patrol boats in Mumbai followed by trials on fishing vessels both of which were successful, the official said. • “Further a pilot was carried out on a small number of fishing vessels along the coasts of Gujarat and Tamil Nadu.” • The trials were conducted in association with Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on one of their communication satellites and the transponders have advanced features like weather alert and so on but there has been no progress, the official further explained. • “Trials were again conducted in 2021 in collaboration with a startup which were also successful. But there has been no movement since.” • World over fishing vessels are supposed to have VMS which does not only give the position identity, the fishing vessel is also supposed to feed in the volume of the catch and where was it caught which tackles the issue of IUU. • There has been growing concern and action on IUU fishing that depletes fish stocks, destroys marine habitats, puts fishermen at disadvantage and impacts coastal communities, especially in developing countries. • In addition, there is also the issue of subsidies for fishermen. It is believed that the more subsidies given, more the illegal fishing and there has been a campaign across the world against subsidies. India has been under pressure over this, two officials independently noted.

📰 Air sports in the country to have an oversight body: • For the first time in India, air sports such as paragliding or hot-air ballooning will come under a four-tier governance structure with the Air Sports Federation of India (ASFI) as the apex body which will oversee aspects such as regulation, certification, accidents and penalties. • Jyotiraditya Scindia, Minister for Civil Aviation on Tuesday unveiled the national air sports policy. • He said that the air sports industry in the country was today worth ₹80-100 crore, with nearly 5,000 providers, which could grow 10 times in terms of revenue and yield 1 lakh direct jobs apart from a multiplier impact on the economy. • The policy lays down a four-tier governance structure with the ASFI at the top, followed by national associations for individual sports and their regional and district level units. • The ASFI will be an autonomous body under the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) which will represent India at global platforms related to air sports such as the World Air Sports Federation and will also conduct competitions across the country through different national air sports associations. • The ASFI will provide governance over different aspects such as regulation, certification, competitions, awards and penalties, and will publish its draft guidelines within a period of six months. • It will be chaired by the Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation, who will nominate upto three eminent experts related to air sports as members of the ASFI governing council. • Sports that will come under its ambit are aeromodelling, model rocketry, amateur-built and experimental aircraft, ballooning, drones, gliding, powered gliding, parachuting, paramotoring, powered aircraft and rotorcraft. • “Initially, these bodies will receive financial support from MoCA. It is a virtuous cycle, because once we have our teams participating in international events, more funds will flow in,” said Amber Dubey, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation. • The government will also look at various incentives to encourage the sport such as reducing GST on air sports equipment from 18%-28% to 5% or less, Minister Scindia said.